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West African Ebola outbreak has claimed 11,306 lives

The ongoing West African Ebola outbreak has claimed 11,306 lives since it began last year, British health officials said in a newly released international epidemiology summary.

The report from Public Health England said there have been 28,256 clinically compatible cases of Ebola related to the outbreak and 15,233 of these cases have been confirmed.

Another five Ebola cases were confirmed last week, all of which were in Sierra Leone. Four of the most recent cases in Sierra Leone are connected to another Ebola cluster that was detected earlier in Kambia. All four patients are close relatives of the person who initially contracted Ebola.

The last Sierra Leone case was detected in Bombali, which is a district that had not had a new Ebola case in more than five months. Health investigators are currently determining the source of the Ebola infection. For several days, the patient remained symptomatic before the person was finally admitted into an Ebola treatment center. Health investigators expect there to be more cases related to the patient.

During the previous week, there was just one case in Guinea and one case in Sierra Leone.

Last week marked the first time that Guinea reported having a week free of new Ebola cases in more than a year.